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Beach Memories…

I’ll be going to the beach for my annual vacation in less than a month. I’ll be taking my teenage daughter and some of her friends. It’s gonna be a blast!

I’ll get tons of eye rolls and get ignored most of the time. We’ll eat wherever they want to go most nights, but I WILL get crab legs and take forever to eat them. I hate seafood, but love crab legs…weird I know! When you only eat them once a year, those things are hard to break open. They’ll complain it’s taking me too long to eat, but I won’t care. That’s why I choose a place that has interactive activities for them so they won’t get too bored waiting on me to finish.

They won’t want me to hang out in the water with them…I’ll be floating with them only to turn and see that they’ve drifted away from me…on purpose. It’s ok though. I’ll find another mom to bond with like I did last year.

I can remember a few years ago, when they still wanted me around. We’d be jumping waves in the ocean and while we waited for the next wave, we would sing. 🎶Under The Sea 🎶 from The Little Mermaid. 🎶Let It Go🎶 from Frozen..songs they enjoyed at the time.

I think I’ll give it a try this year and see what happens! Anything they want to sing will make me happy. I’ll just make up words if I don’t know them! That’s a sure fire way to annoy them!

There was also the year my daughter went to the beach for the first time and gave me a five minute long public service announcement about why people leaving trash on the beach was bad and how it affected ocean life….and how I caught her several times dancing her heart out alongside the surf. Thankfully, I filmed both of these events! Something that mortifies her now, but I cherish those videos.

We’ll spend our days at the beach and nights exploring the city and searching for crabs in the sand with our flashlights. We’ll find little jellyfish that have washed up on shore and marvel at the way they change colors. We’ll enjoy our view of the beach from the balcony, watch for dolphins, shop at souvenir stores, have pizza delivered, eat at new restaurants, and soak up not only the sun, but every glorious moment in beach paradise.

It may sound like I’m complaining a bit in the beginning of this post, but I don’t mean to. They’re teenagers! Of course they don’t want me “hanging out” with them the whole time. I understand that. I’ll give them their space and they’ll include me from time to time. I’ll annoy them or embarrass them and I will capture every moment I can with a photograph. For some reason that annoys them, too. The irony is that they will ask me hours later to send them the pics so they can post them on Instagram. I should tell them no since they didn’t want to pose in the first place, but I won’t!

I’ll enjoy every moment of this vacation with my teenage daughter and her friends because I know my days are numbered with them. I ask them on occasion if they will come visit when I’m old and in a nursing home. I ask if they will remind me of all the fun things we did when I’m not able to remember them anymore. Of course they laugh at me and say yes, because they can’t see that far into the future.

What they don’t know is that all the things I’ve mentioned in this post will be memories for them later on. If I’m lucky they will come visit me, remind me of all the fun we had when they were young, and decorate my room with all the photos that they didn’t want to take.